<a href="http://news.sjvc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Joseph-Weaver.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-638" title="Joseph Weaver" src="http://news.sjvc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Joseph-Weaver-290x290.jpg" alt="" width="290" height="290" /></a> “Some people like going to school and some don’t,” says <a title="Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration" href="http://www.sjvc.edu/heating-ventilation-air-conditioning-and-refrigeration/">Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning and Refrigeration </a>student, Joseph Weaver. “I’m one who doesn’t.” He spent 6-months at a Jr. College before he accepted that all those General Ed classes just didn’t interest him and he dropped out.

So imagine his surprise when his academic accomplishments and good attendance earned him recognition recently by his SJVC instructors. Everything about his HVAC-R program is working for him.

“First of all, they (<a title="SJVC" href="http://www.sjvc.edu">SJVC</a>) give you a laptop and all the tools you will need for any job,” says Joey, who is among the first students to enroll on the new Temecula campus. “All of the equipment is brand new, so we’re the first to get to play with all this great stuff,” he says.

It’s not just the hands-on training that appeals to Joey. The heating and air conditioning industry makes a lot of career sense to him.

“Everyone in this class is here for the same reason: to make money,” he says. Joey knows that with his degree, specialized education and training – and all those great tools – he will strengthen his potential for job security.

Joey’s two instructors have 45-years combined experience in the field and that gives him even greater confidence that he will be competitive in the job market.

“They tell us, ‘If you need something, just call”’, he says. “It’s not like at Jr. College where you are given a 15-minute slot of time and if your question doesn’t get answered, too bad.”

Joey, his wife Erin and their two young children are making huge sacrifices to get him through to graduation in December, 2013. He works full-time at Lowes from 3:00 am to 11:30 am – a 40-hr. work week – while he attends evening HVAC-R classes. Erin works part-time, so Joey helps with childcare and catches a nap when the kids go down. Living with Erin’s mother, Tammie, who also helps with the children, has made their commitments possible.

It was Erin who prompted Joey to go back to school. Always resistant, it wasn’t until she woke him up to show him a TV commercial for SJVC’s HVAC-R program that he finally gave it serious thought.  He called the college and made an appointment for the same day. He hadn’t taken a test since graduating from high school seven years earlier, so he was a little nervous about the entrance exam. He shouldn’t have worried.

Now, at the top of his class, he knows that he has finally found his education and career fit. Sometimes wives just have a sense about these things.